Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday May 23, 2010 @01:22PM
from the avoiding-cognitive-dissonance dept.

Kilrah_il writes "After HP bought Palm a few weeks ago, many rumors emerged regarding the new parent company's plans to further expand the scope of devices running WebOS. Now it appears that at least one of the rumors is true: The Slate will be running WebOS. 'Today an HP exec has confirmed that the company is developing a WebOS tablet which should be available by October.'"

Did you ever see the WebOS? If you want aesthetically-pleasing, you don't want Android, you want WebOS. I know you were talking about the tablet itself, but if you have a beautiful tablet, you want it running the most aesthetic mobile OS possible, and right now it is the WebOS, IMHO. The fact that it not a success (yet) in smartphones is more a testament to Palm's horrible marketing skills than to WebOS's faults. Hope HP does better.

It's like they built the hardware to only be used by really small people (women), and then forgot that most women have these things called nails, which makes half the keyboard (the side edges) impossible to use for their target market.

Had the Pre been the size of the iPhone, and not the size of the iPhone's screen, it might have been usable by my fat geek fingers, and my gf's sleek yet heavily armored finger-tips.

And the way to cure that problem is to leverage yourself into a market where MS doesn't control your survival.Nevermind the fact that Microsoft can't STOP selling product to HP. They may lose preferential pricing deals, but they'll still always be able to buy Windows at OEM prices.

Since HP doesn't have much of a business laptop market, they're not going to suffer there. Let Dell have the low-hanging fruit. HP wants to own the Datacenter, and a little WebOS isn't going to change the HP->Microsoft relat

To 'root' my pre on the first day involved only downloading the official development platform from Palm for Linux. I didn't have to go to Windows or OSX or wait for someone in the community to 'jailbreak'. Meanwhile, Android phones from most manufacturers take a few weeks for the community to jailbreak before the fun begins. I'd rather go with a platform where the manufacturer blatantly allows the users the power Palm does. I find it ironic as the base platform is more closed in theory, but in practice is a bit more amenable to hacking.

Though I'm personally not enthused about their HTML5/Javascript 'premiere' approach to applications, I do like the simplicity of SDL/GL/C code to develop other apps.

As a user, I find WebOS' current interface a bit slicker on the multitasking front.

Of course, all this said I don't think I'll ever be interested in a tablet. It's in a useless spot for me of not being as useful as a laptop yet not as convenient as my 'phone'.

They might be control freaks just for the hell of it; but it would arguably be a quite irrational act on their part.

If you are Apple, and have a potent mix of good marketshare and unbeatable mindshare, you can get away with pissing people off, if you think that it is in your interest.

If you are a carrier, trying to whip every last nickel out of your "2 year contract and stiff ETF" serfs, you don't have to care, you're the phone company.

If, on the other hand, you've just spent 1.2billion on a nice, but rather getting hammered in the marketplace, OS, it probably isn't a good time to upset that OS's most enthusiastic fanboys and developers.

If they decide that prospective commercial developers want a War On Piracy(tm), or if they ink some sort of ghastly "Premium Content" deal, any amount of evil is possible; but so long as they are focused on "not losing", they should remain fairly cooperative.

The number of iPhone users who are unhappy they can't root their phone is so small as to not be measurable. On the other hand, the number of iPhone administrators who are happy that users can't root their phones and neither can malicious interlopers is fairly high.

Given that the quoted percentage of iDevices that are actually jailbroken tends to float between 5 and 10 percent(depending on how recently there has been a not-yet-jailbroken update, and how desirable that update is) "so small as to not be measurable" seems implausible.

More to the point, though, there has definitely been some high-profile bitching from various developers, some of them fairly notable. That is exactly the sort of thing that you can get away with if you are well positioned(What're you goin

Given that the quoted percentage of iDevices that are actually jailbroken tends to float between 5 and 10 percent

Sorry, that's just a bullshit figure. There's no way that 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 iPhones are jailbroken. I'd be surprised if it approached 1 percent. Where are these figures from? How would you even get such figures reliably?

I believe that the numbers typically quoted come from Pinch Media, who is the fairly big player in 3rd party analytics on the various iDevices, and who attempts to collect numbers on jailbroken devices and pirated application installs, among numerous other variables.

I believe that the numbers typically quoted come from Pinch Media, who is the fairly big player in 3rd party analytics on the various iDevices, and who attempts to collect numbers on jailbroken devices and pirated application installs, among numerous other variables.

And the methods they use to do so appear to be complete bullshit. It is actually collecting statistics on applications that "use the Pinch Media network." Which is pretty damn irrelevant. If you look at their reports, there is heavy spin on how they report their figures, and appear to be particularly weighted by figures from China and Russia.

Will be interesting to see what kind of approach HP takes with WebOS. They're in a unique position where they might have the best of both the iPad and Android tablet worlds in that they can provide a much more open experience akin to Android, but still be able to achieve the advantages Apple has from designing both the software and the hardware. Will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Will be interesting to see what kind of approach HP takes with WebOS. They're in a unique position where they might have the best of both the iPad and Android tablet worlds in that they can provide a much more open experience akin to Android, but still be able to achieve the advantages Apple has from designing both the software and the hardware.

Sure, but that requires them to not fuck it up. And they're HP (a great company 30 years ago, but a pathetic shadow today).

Apple has a bazillion times more UI (and design) chops, and Google has a bazillion times more technical chops (and more freedom to be open because of their somewhat unique position in the market), so betting on what HP "could do" seems a wee bit risky.

C API:- Android: closed- WebOS: closed- iPhone OS: managed (250,000 apps with only 0.03% of apps rejected, which is a smaller percentage than the Windows blacklist or Google's Web blacklist)

So it's great that you can replace the kernel on WebOS or Android if you want to. But if I'm the developer of a Mac/PC app or console game, iPhone OS is by far the most open mobile system because it speaks my C language, it can accommodate my existing C app 90% unchanged, and

I for one welcome this new class of device. I have a Palm Pre running webOS and I can do probably 40% of my computer activities on it, but the larger screen would really improve that experience while sitting on the couch reading/.

It isn't a computer replacement, the formfactor already limits the uses and so I like the limited software.

However, the Palm homebrew comunity has X running on webOS so if you want, you can have "real" apps.

I think you naysayers really need to try it, even if it isn't for everyone, it is going to be a great class of device for lots of people.

For now I'd either go with Android, bank on Google and Java and that environment, or wait for MeeGo to grow up a bit and then develop what amounts to a standard Linux system (linux, GNU coreutils, etc...).

Either way you'll need to write some code for touchscreen UIs, but at least both platforms are pretty darn open.

WebOS has some open stuff in the base layer, but their entire GUI layer is pretty much closed, right? So why would anyone choose to develop for it? I mean, if you want a closed-source environment, why wouldn't you just go with Apple's offerings?

If HP sells a few million of these devices in the first year of sales (Which really isn't a terribly large prediction considering that the iPad has probably sold close to two million units already.) that's several million people who might be interested in paying for apps. Since developers are people and people need to eat, sometimes it's better to go where the money is rather than basing development off of reasons such as openness of the platform or ease of development. If Android and iPhone marketplaces get crowded, WebOS might be an attractive platform for new developers who don't want to compete against several established developers.

For now I'd either go with Android, bank on Google and Java and that environment, or wait for MeeGo to grow up a bit and then develop what amounts to a standard Linux system (linux, GNU coreutils, etc...).

Either way you'll need to write some code for touchscreen UIs, but at least both platforms are pretty darn open.

WebOS has some open stuff in the base layer, but their entire GUI layer is pretty much closed, right? So why would anyone choose to develop for it? I mean, if you want a closed-source environment, why wouldn't you just go with Apple's offerings?

If you haven't used it, grab the free SDK (works on Linux, Mac, and Windows) and take a look at the emulator or take a look at a Palm Pre/Pre Plus. Palm's WebOS has a very smooth interface, something Android is missing to some extent. Also, programming for WebOS is quite open and they allow and even *encourage* modifications and unofficial applications outside the "app catalog", which makes it a lot more open than the iPad.

Unless you want to modify the GUI engine itself (which is basically just a way to throw pixels for a WebKit/V8-based Javascript engine, and for PDK apps, a way to manage slightly SDL, and OpenGLES, and the SDL is part of the GUI that is open source....) WebOS is just as open from a practical standpoint as Android if not slightly more open since no rooting is needed whatsoever. Also, one can modify apps and make themes easily since everything is just Javascript text files basically. (You get a root prompt to do what you want with with the SDK!) When's the last time you could modify Google Maps on Android, for just one example? You can do that with WebOS, closed source or no closed source, the source is there.:-) Homebrewers have added features to it, such as Google Latitude, that Google disabled on WebOS because they have a bit of preferential treatment to Android and their former board member Apple rather than little rival Palm.;-) Also, many other included apps have all sorts of modifications available for them called "patches". It's very much in the spirit of open source. You can even grab alternative kernels, and enhance the performance of your Pre or Pre Plus (I don't know if they bothered making alternative kernels for the Pixi yet, though that could be interesting...)

It also resembles a standard Linux distro more under the hood than Android really, which is a very good thing, almost all the frameworks you'd find on a Linux desktop, like gstreamer, are there, and the file system hierarchy should be familiar as well. Only the N900 really has it beat as far as that goes, and the N900 is a little *too* Unixy in the interface department unlike WebOS. (Though if you insist, the Homebrew folks have developed Qt and X11 for WebOS too, which makes a wealth of ugly apps such as even OpenOffice, if you want to really torture yourself trying to run it;-), available for WebOS.;-) Maybe OpenOffice will run better on the HP Slate though...)

WebOS has some open stuff in the base layer, but their entire GUI layer is pretty much closed, right?

No. Their UI layer is Mojo -- an HTML + JavaScript engine. Their window manager is the only part of the GUI that you can call "closed", but it's hackable as all hell.

And on top of that, Palm realises that they will live or die by their developer community. To homebrew on an iPhone, you need to void your warranty. (Yes, they might not call you on it -- but they CAN). To homebrew with the Pre, you just put the phone in developer mode, and you can do pretty much whatever you want.

WebOS has some open stuff in the base layer, but their entire GUI layer is pretty much closed, right?

No. Their UI layer is Mojo -- an HTML + JavaScript engine. Their window manager is the only part of the GUI that you can call "closed", but it's hackable as all hell.

Okay, it's nice that the only piece of the GUI that's closed is the WM, and it's also beneficial that it's "hackable as all hell," but with fully-open platforms like Android, MeeGo, and Symbian available, I'm still reaching for a reason to use it.

Is the WM the only closed piece in the unit?

I'd wager that WebOS is in some ways more open than Android -- but I haven't peeked at Google's Android machine too closely.

Ummmm... I think that the base Android system is (absent drivers and maybe some proprietary stuff like Flash/H.264 in the default browser) all BSD, GPL, or Apache licensed.

At least on the OS front, all of the companies (including Apple) have taken the easy way out...

Looking at the usability, and yes, sales, of Windows Tablet PCs, it wasn't rocket science to figure out that existing OS's just weren't going to work. They just weren't designed for touch, and add-on hack to try and accommodate it were clunky at best.

Given the expense and size limitations of decent touch sensitive screens, and the increasing muscle available to smart phones, they were a natural place to build a to

It’s become pretty clear at this point that scaling a smartphone OS up, rather than scaling a desktop OS down, is the better approach. Someone had to stick their necks out and try it. Microsoft tried and failed to scale Windows down, but Apple has apparently succeeded going the other way. Let’s not forget that the outcomes were far from obvious even as recently as a few months ago. HP getting on stage with Microsoft in January was their throwing in their lot with the desktop approach. I think they’ll ultimately come out happier having reconsidered. It actually took corporate chutzpah for them to cancel the Windows 7 Slate after showing it.

It is a stopgap, at best. Someone needs to take the time, do the research, and do the work to write an OS for these devices instead of trying to patchwork add and remove bits and pieces of systems clearly designed for other purposes.

You may be right, but remember: shipping is a feature, and, IMO, the most important one.(disclaimer: happy iPad owner here...)

It's become pretty clear at this point that scaling a smartphone OS up, rather than scaling a desktop OS down, is the better approach.

Guess what? iPhone OS is OSX scaled down.

Microsoft tried and failed to scale Windows down, but Apple has apparently succeeded going the other way.

No, you have no idea what you're talking about, as we've already established; Windows CE is its own OS and not based on another Windows, so it's not scaled down from anything, while the iPhone/Pad/etc OS is based on OSX, so it's scaled down from something, which you claim is the inferior approach.

It actually took corporate chutzpah for them to cancel the Windows 7 Slate after showing it.

More products are probably cancelled than actually brought to market. Microsoft cancels things all the time. WinFS anyone? Oh wait, you're ignorant of history, sorry about

What is it you'd like to see in a tablet OS? iPhone OS is a pretty full featured version of OS X underneath and Android is a pretty full featured version of Linux underneath. Do you want more GUI elements? A task manager?

they said it would run on HP tablets but did not say it would be on the HP Slate they showed earlier this year. But the silence regarding that product means something too. They are probably having problems getting Windows 7 to run well enough on it to be competitive or you know they'd be taking the marketing $$ from Microsoft to be spreading the love for Windows 7.

What is also interesting is how they are staying off of netbooks with WebOS. As you all know, Microsoft now owns and controls the netbook segment and they are doing a good job at killing it off. More specifically, they dictate what screen size a "netbook" has, what the maxium processor size can be and other specifics which pin the device down. And because Microsoft controls OEMs regarding netbooks, HP and others are not going to go up against Microsoft now that MS has stuck their flag into that segment. Only Google and a few independents have the balls to oppose MS there. Remember, the Thai manufacturing association said they fear Microsoft so they are staying away from putting Linux on anything which looks like a PC/notebook.

HP has to dance lightly around what they do with WebOS for fear of upsetting Microsoft so don't expect too much from them. IMO

More specifically, they dictate what screen size a "netbook" has, what the maxium processor size can be and other specifics which pin the device down.

I think you've confused your monopolists;)
Intel stops giving out price breaks for Atom processors when the screen exceeds 10.1 inches. They've recently dropped that restriction for their fastest Atom (N550).
At the same time they've set minimum limits for the amount of memory and storage space.

Microsoft now owns and controls the netbook segment and they are doing a good job at killing it off. More specifically, they dictate what screen size a "netbook" has, what the maxium processor size can be and other specifics which pin the device down.

This claim is more than a year and a half out-of-date. Before September 2008, cheaper "netbook pricing" for Windows XP Home limited the screen size to 10.2", hard drive to 80GB, RAM to 1GB, and CPU to single-core. In September 2008, MS updated the screen limit ot 14.1" and hard drive to 160GB.

I hear lots of bla bla tablets sucked before the iPad bla. But I had a Compaq TC1000 (2003 vintage) for a while and I fail to see what I was mising by not having an iPad. Stylus meant I could actually write, click on and move stuff around properly with it; lazy susan keyboard attachment meant I could treat it as a laptop. I had no need to fat-finger gestures when I had the precision of a pen-point - not that I'd have said no to gestures as an addition, but it's hardly a deal-breaker as far as being able to work and browse with a useful tablet device.

FWIW, I'll admit that the stylus was heavy - but this was fixed with the TC1100, which also featured a faster non-Transmeta CPU.

Before I got my android phone I thought the same, but now I really miss things like fling and swipe on my tablet. Using a stylus to scroll is so much more cumbersome. My wish is a hybrid pen/finger display with a full OS.

You are right, some people were happy with that. Most people did not see that it was worth the expense.

I fail to see why people like you can't understand that. It is very fucking simple, just becaues you like something, doesn't mean everybody else does. Hey, the iPad might fail, and no doubt we will get some more morons like you, not understanding why it failed. If lots more people don't like it, it will fail. This is not complicated.

It's a fair question. With the exception of handwriting anywhere converted to text and occasional mathematical notating (a proper effort supporting which has since been made in Windows 7), I didn't really use any apps which were designed for a tablet interface.

But I didn't really yearn for much further either. I can see how gestures could have made browsing easier, but nothing about a pen made an interface designed for a mouse any harder. Pressure difference and/or buttons on the pen could be used to betwee

The iPad is successful, in part, due to the App Store and the large set of touch based applications already proven on other iPhone OS devices. I'm not familiar with the Palm Pre to know what kind of app selection it has and how well-done the UI is on them. Windows based touch devices have never taken off because it is Windows (a desktop, full PC based OS) with a thin touch veneer on top rather than a touch-based, thin client OS.

I wish HP well expanding Web OS and developing it into a viable competitor to iP

So when this ships, iPad will be running iPhone OS v4.1 with multitasking of 300,000 C apps, including about 100,000 games, a game network, encryption with remote wipe, remote find, thousands of accessories, the whole iPod music and movies experience, about 25 bookstores, the fastest and most responsive mobile experience, and between 10 and 20 million installed base. Plus a line of iPhones and iPods that can run many of the same apps, and a line of Macs with the same core OS and free iPhone developer tools.

So many questions:

- how are they going to compete without apps?- are they going to expose a comprehensive C API so developers can port iPhone apps? (weird how the Android C API is locked down but people call it "open", huh?)- will they get 10 hours of battery life?- will they have Flash, will it work, will anybody care?- will the onscreen keyboard suck? (so far, all WebOS devices had hardware keyboards)- will there be a single feature that iPad doesn't have? (iPad already has cheap USB and SD card accessories and will likely have a video cam accessory by October)- will they have no contract unlimited data for $30/month?- will they have a 16GB Wi-Fi only model for less than $499? (an unsubsidized Pre is $599, the original HP Slate was $549, and Nexus One with 4GB costs $529)- why wouldn't this just be iPod versus Zune all over again?- will all the PC enthusiasts who are still at this time ranting about how "useless" iPad is and how much better the original HP Slate was going to be now rally behind this because it's from HP, even though it has many fewer uses (apps) than iPad and no longer runs Windows?

I definitely think HP are going in the right direction dropping Windows for Unix and dropping 3rd party software for 1st party. But they are so far behind. Apple worked on iPad for 7 years before releasing it, and HP will have had less than 7 months. WebOS has been shipping for a year, but when Apple started iPad 7 years ago, OS X had been shipping for 3 years. Along the way, Apple started making their own batteries and CPU's to get to where they could make iPad.

The key thing with iPad is the apps morph it into about 100,000 niche devices. So people buy them for very different reasons. It's like for any particular user, the killer app is completely different, but iPad has it. The killer app on iPad is apps. Not the Web, not email. All that stuff is a free extra. I know people who bought iPad just for WebEx, others who bought it just for the art tools, others purely as a camera accessory, and others who bought it only for Netflix and iTunes.

Even though I have an iPad and am really happy with it, I can't help but sort of root for HP because at least they stopped, turned around, and starting going in the right direction. And it's kind of fun to see Microsoft jilted and Ballmer shown up as a stooge again. But they have a long way to go from generic DOS boxes to competing with iPad.

>- will there be a single feature that iPad doesn't have? (iPad already has cheap USB and SD card accessories and will likely have a video cam accessory by October)

Real and useful multitasking. The cheap USB and SD card accessories suck by the virtue of being accessories, and having to plug in a webcam in such a portable device is even more ridiculous considering how cheap and easy it is to integrate one into a phone, not to mention a much larger tablet.

They're blowing it completely by not going android. There's usually room in any given market for about three major competitors before consumers begin to get confused. So, Apple, Android, and Palm. Only, Palm is a distant third here and HP doesn't exactly have a good name any more. Average consumers think of them as a company that makes professional (read: expensive, ugly, and heavy) equipment and printers. Geeks are fucking over HP, which sells crap at a premium and proceeds to provide the worst service ima

We're talking about the HP that sold hundreds of thousands of laptops to consumers knowing that they had defective chipsets on the motherboard. They didn't discover this after shipping the laptops, they were aware of the problem before the first one was shipped and they had a choice: rework or repair the defective units before shipping, or ship them in defective condition and screw the customer.

Being the HP that we know - the one that didn't see a problem with "pretexting" - no, let's call it spying / eave

We're talking about the HP that sold hundreds of thousands of laptops to consumers knowing that they had defective chipsets on the motherboard.

Let's not forget their response to nVidia chips with die bonding problems. I had a machine with a FX1500M with the problem, and it took literally days on the phone to get a replacement machine. (The replacement MXM video boards had the same problem, so no help from MXM there. MXM is stupid, just adds cost to the system...) I will never ever buy anything from HP again, not a printer, not a laptop, not a photo frame. (I got an HP photo frame as a gift, it has a shitty interface. HP is just all bad. Don't get

That. I recently broke down and bought an Axiotron Modbook [axiotron.com]. This is a standard MacBook that has a Wacom tablet stapled on the top of the machine. Runs real-live OS X (cue snarky comment about 'real' OS. Just note, it does run EMACS).

A very mixed bag. Using a stylus is hampered by the poor decision to run a low end Wacom product with a terrible pen and software that is unable to change the very limited button repertoire based on application. Hardware / Software integration is poor. Support is pretty weak (the company rarely shows up in the forums). Nice idea, but it just "Doesn't work". At best it will be a very niche product - it's fun to work Photoshop in your lap - but actually frustrating because PS really needs a keyboard to be productive.

So, in short, it's just like every other full OS tablet that litters the landscape. Neither fish nor fowl, never really tuned up, never really achieve any market success. This is why the future of tablets is a limited OS with finger touch as the main input.

Now, there isn't anything (at least to my knowledge) that prevents His Jobness to release an iPad pro (aka 'the MaxiPad') that lets you get out on a real USB ports, runs CUPS, runs Terminal, comes with a Pony, etc.

How does running keyboard centric applications on a bodged-together low resolution stylus-based display indict using a full OS on a finger based tablet with touch-aware applications?

It doesn't. My point being that current 'normal' operating systems DON'T include significant touch based functionality and certainly the applications aren't there yet. Thus, my contention that a 'specialty' OS and application suite, one engineered to deal with the advantages and limitations of the tablet form factor, are goin

The entire argument for running Windows 7 (a "real OS", for whatever that means) on a slate tablet is that you can run all your existing Windows programs, like Photoshop, on it. This guy has a tablet device, and is running Photoshop, and says it doesn't really work, due to lack of keyboard. Take away the stylus, and it'd get even worse, because Photoshop is in no way optimized for finger input. That's why I never get everyone being all excited about running existing Windows apps on a touchscreen slate. Almost none of those apps have any kind of support for touch, and have UIs optimized for keyboard/mouse input. There's an app running where I work on a touchscreen display. Its painfully obvious there was no thought of touchscreens when it was designed. Its so bad that someone hooked a mouse into the computer running it, so there could be some kind of control.

So in order to properly use this Slate tablet, you also have to lug around a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and probably the chargers for them, or some extra batteries. So how is that better than an iPad, where you can use a bluetooth keyboard with it as well? And use software specifically designed for this device?

I had worked on a register with a touchscreen, and WinXP. THe register part worked and you could enter data fast because things like scrollbars and buttons were huge. But when you had to switch to something in Control Panel for instance, since the widgets were normal size instead of touchscreen size, it would always be a struggle to move or close a window using any of the GUI buttons.

I agree, forget about using standard desktop OSes. And that's what the iPad is demonstrating.

I believe you can already get Linux and Windows 7-based tablets, and they haven't exactly been flying off the shelves.

Are you saying you are in the market for a tablet, but you are just waiting for one with the right OS? Or are you waiting for Linux or Windows to be updated with a better touch interface? Or apps to be created/updated for these OS's to be better touch enabled?

And are there enough copies of you that will buy this device to make it worthwhile?

Are you saying you are in the market for a tablet, but you are just waiting for one with the right OS? Or are you waiting for Linux or Windows to be updated with a better touch interface? Or apps to be created/updated for these OS's to be better touch enabled?

And are there enough copies of you that will buy this device to make it worthwhile?

1) So, basically you're waiting for somebody to come out with 'something' better, but you have no idea what features and/or capabilities it may have [other than it's not the iPad and doesn't use PalmOS].

2) Given (1), you can't really say there are enough copies of you to make it worthwhile, unless you happen to be personally wealthy enough to create this magical device yourself. And fund the development of the OS. And fund the development of the apps you want.

If that's what you want, there are a bunch of those available for you already. None of them have been very successful, and the only ones that sell in decent numbers are the convertible ones. Otherwise they're all like netbooks with the keyboard removed.

History and reality beg to differ. If anything, history has shown us that a "full" laptop or desktop OS is NOT what people want on a tablet. The UI for a tablet needs to be different than a desktop. Simply sticking windows or OS X onto a slate and substituting your finger or a stylus for a mouse and displaying an on screen keyboard is not, according to historic sales of tablets, and current sales of the iPad, what people want. I had a Windows tablet and the only thing it better at was browsing the web.

is it too much to ask for a tablet to run a real operating system?!?! the slate had a chance to rise up, now it's just going to be another oversized under-capable phone a la worthless iPad. fire the CTO that made this decision.

Why? Why do you want a "real" operating system? Why do you need something so full featured? The Apple and the iPad faithful would have you believe that the iPad is taking over general purpose computing. That the "PC" world is fearful of the shift. This is wishful thinking and marketing smoke-and-mirrors.

The reality is that the iPad (and up-and-coming similar products) are streamlined information ("content" if you will) delivery platforms. It's the right interface for specific tasks. It isn't the righ

The problem with that touchscreen UI layer that HP adds on is that, as soon as you go away from the few specialty apps they came up with for use with that layer, you see how painful it is to run regular desktop apps with a finger based interface. At least on Android, iPhoneOS, and WebOS, the apps are designed from the beginning to be used with a finger.

Bingo! I purchased (and returned) a Windows 7 based netbook. Touch screen & finger does not equal mouse. The problem is the OS is built from the ground up to *not* be touchscreen friendly. Using a finger to poke at a narrow scrollbar on a 7" screen is a deal breaker for me.

If people were so serious about buying Windows based slates, the sales of "Tablet PCs" wouldn't have been sucking for the last decade.

Also, "WebOS" implies that its UI layer is based on web technologies, not that it is browser-only. Support for local applications is pretty much exactly the same as Android. And, with native plugins, support for native code might even be said to be slightly better; but certainly no worse.

If people were so serious about buying Windows based slates, the sales of "Tablet PCs" wouldn't have been sucking for the last decade.

Wrong. If tablet pc prices weren't so much higher (on average 3-4 times higher) than a comparably priced laptop, then tablet pc sales wouldn't have sucked for the last decade. I get it, it costs more to add a touch screen - but it does NOT cost $1,000 more (as evidenced by the fact that the iPad with the traditional Apple mark-up starts at $499). The reason sales have sucked is that companies don't want to charge more for newer, superior technology - they want to charge obscenely more for it and the resu

Given that the Wintel integrators have been cutting one another's throats on margins for years now(IBM fled the PC market entirely, HP makes most of its profit on consulting and overpriced ink, etc.) I find it hard to believe that the price of tablet PCs has been maintained merely by what the vendors want to charge. Unless there is something about tablets that makes them uniquely cartel friendly, they would have faced the same knife-fight-in-a-telephone-booth process that does the pricing elsewhere.

Wrong. If tablet pc prices weren't so much higher (on average 3-4 times higher) than a comparably priced laptop, then tablet pc sales wouldn't have sucked for the last decade.

Not at all. WIMP GUIs absolutely suck for tablets, and people hate styluses. I realize there are small niches where a stylus is useful and others where someone might want a touch-screen or pen-based Windows slate, but these markets are extremely limited.

The fact is that there is absolutely no consumer market for a stylus or touch based Windows (or Linux or Mac OS X, with their normal GUIs) tablet. That's why those devices have failed.

That's the reason Apple completely redesigned the interface for OS X for the iPhone, why MS has a completely new interface (finally, and most certainly too late) for Windows Mobile, and why Android is Linux with a completely custom interface.

Bullshit. I said that the fact that companies ridiculously overprice tablet pc's has kept them from becoming popular. Your response was "Not at all". Ergo, you are saying price has no impact on people's purchasing decisions.

Bullshit. I said that the fact that companies ridiculously overprice tablet pc's has kept them from becoming popular. Your response was "Not at all". Ergo, you are saying price has no impact on people's purchasing decisions.

Not at all (see how that works?). Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they believe exactly the antithesis of your thesis. They might just think other things are more important.

In this case he's saying it's all about the UI, more than the price (though that's not to say the price has no impact, or even that it is not a strong factor, just not the strongest).

I want a tablet running {...} even a full Linux distro {...} I'll pay in the $500-$600 price range for a tablet in the 10"-14" range

Then get a Touch Book [alwaysinnovating.com]. Has more or less everything you need (minus perhaps a good support for Flash, due to adobe not releasing support for ARM-based CPUs).

And technically WebOS is Linux at its core, with "dev-mode" (i.e.: installing software from things other than the official application store) available out-of-the-box, and a bunch of various Linux stuff already compiled from Optware. The only limitations are its non standart graphic interface: it's Web-based instead of X-based (but still has SDL support

In terms of hardware, HP has(within the limitations imposed by Intel and physics) pretty much been-there-done-that in terms of Wintel Tablets. Their TC1100, with ULV Pentium M, up to 2BG of RAM, 802.11b/g, bluetooth, and fully detachable keyboard was among the high-water marks of the genre. The only difference from what you mention is that the screen was stylus based, both because capacitive displays of that size weren't really available yet, and because XP really requires fairly fine pointing precision, unless you are running at an annoying low resolution, or have managed to get everything working with a nonstandard DPI setting.

They also have their line of "touchsmart" desktops, which run full Windows, have finger-touch screens(in the 20-inch range), and some vendor shovelware designed to give you some touch stuff to do. They aren't bad, per se, you don't pay much of a premium over standard wintel all-in-ones, and the touch can be a fun gimmick, but you don't exactly see them sprouting on every desk. As far as I can tell, the trouble is that, as long as the number of Windows boxes without touch vastly exceeds the number with, "touch support" is going to be an afterthought. MS has done about as well as can be expected in natively rendering touch events into mouse activity, so using applications that don't care is certainly possible; but it isn't terribly pleasant. There aren't many applications that explicitly go beyond that(aside from a few that support some gestures or something, or esoteric warehouse management stuff, and other bespoke specialty things).

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people wanting Windows-based tablets. Given that building one will basically involve chopping the keyboard off a netbook and springing for a more expensive display, I'm sure that they'll get their wish. However, Windows-based tablets have been tried, off and on, for ages(Windows 3.1 had a Pen-computing add-on) and it has just never worked that well, outside of niche situations with a limited set of bespoke applications(at which point, unless your volume is tiny, you could probably get a ruggedized CE device with 4 times the battery life to do the job).

Anyone looking at my posting history will see I am not a huge MS fan, but in this case I really think the biggest problem is that you can't have a touch based GUI and still be what most people think of as "Windows".
A well executed touch based OS takes away almost all of Microsoft's market advantages, i.e. familiarity and application availability. Even if the OS GUI were completely converted to a nice touch interface, almost all existing windows apps would be clumsy to use.
This is the closest thing to a

If that thing had WebOS running on it, and you could buy the smaller pad version as well, that would allow you to really start thinking of WebOS as a scalable development platform with multi-touch.

And while it's doable, I don't think Apple's going to approve of/not undermine someone selling a rig to convert the iPad into a desktop setup. The pad is always going to be able recreation, whereas HP could push pads/phones/desktops coordinated to do work, all using the

The past decade is only worth so much, there has not been a slim, finger-friendly tablet computer that runs Windows, at those at least seem like they might be decent differentiators for the form factor

Perhaps that's because Windows in its current form is not conducive to a slim, finger-friendly tablet computer. There's a good reason HP bought webos and Microsoft cancelled Courier, and that reason is Windows is not (in its current form) adaptable to that form factor.

I guarantee you HP tried making a slate with Windows first - they were even showing it off as a concept with Ballmer, so for them to then use WebOS for new products tells you something about how well that has gone.

Windows tablets require Atom, and have a pitiful battery life, due to both Atom and WIndows being battery hogs. Indeed, Windows tablets have been available forever, and nobody much bought them.

Right now the choice is AppleOS or WinCE. Upcoming are Android, MeeGoo, and Palm.

I'm not sure Palm can be successful, sandwiched between Apple and the open-sourcers. It will be very interesting to see if HP goes Open, and if, starting from a good technical base, they manage to build devices, an OS, and an ecosystem as

We need to work out words for different degrees of Open, from Public Domain to Apple Playpen, with BSD, GPL, and "regular OS" stages (and certainly others).

PalmOS is certainly neither Public Domain nor Open Source, I'm not sure if it goes for Regular OS (you may develop any Apps, but not really hack the OS), or Apple Playpen (You may do only what we like)

WebOS is very open: you can develop apps, like in all ecosystems, but also you can hack the OS, an act that is not frowned upon by Palm and is even encouraged ( http://www.precentral.net/palm-hearts-homebrew-community [precentral.net] ), although I agree they have not gone so far as to call it Open-Sourced.

It is stylistically pretty similar to OSX(mostly FOSS guts, more or less proprietary UI and core applications), though it arguably leans slightly closer to "open" than OSX does. If only for lack of time and manpower, Palm didn't do very much to the stock linux layer(whereas, while it is a certified UNIX and all that, OSX is a bit of a culture shock coming from Linux or one of the classic BSDs) and the WebOS UI layer is largely rendered in HTML+CSS+javascript in a webkit-based system.

It isn't like android, where there is, in fact, an OSS release that you can actually download and build and go(except for proprietary Google components); but architecturally it is basically near-stock Linux(arguably more "stock" than Android's Linux layer) along with Webkit, with a few platform-specific javascript extensions to support program access to specific hardware features.

It isn't exactly the successor to OpenMoko; but it is basically a conglomeration of OSS components, and its "SDK" is extremely close to web development, with a few nonstandard bits and pieces for local application and hardware access stuff.

though it arguably leans slightly closer to "open" than OSX does. If only for lack of time and manpower, Palm didn't do very much to the stock linux layer(whereas, while it is a certified UNIX and all that, OSX is a bit of a culture shock coming from Linux or one of the classic BSDs) and the WebOS UI layer is largely rendered in HTML+CSS+javascript in a webkit-based system.

Anyone who has ever used any two certified UNIX systems could have told you not to expect broad similarities just because of that fact. You're not suggesting something is even slightly less open just because it is different are you? Maybe the web 2.0 UI was supposed to be your (forking a sentence makes it hard to read) main point?;)

It was running Windows, they demo'd it running Windows, then they scrapped the Windows version. What does that say about running Windows on a Slate / Tablet device? Clearly the experience is very below par.

It pretty much says that these devices are not meant as a general purpose computer and are really something better named a "content consumption device". Neither a general purpose computer (although it has the core of one and you can come close by adding keyboards and all), nor a phone they have a small niche market today. Putting a full OS like Windows, OSX, or even Linux on them is really not a great idea. All three of those are full fledged operating systems designed to do general purpose computing and ar

The distinction isn't between "general purpose" and "content consumption". Most people primarily consume content on their PCs, and there are plenty of content creation apps for the iPad. The distinction is fundamentally in the interface. Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X on a tablet doesn't make sense because the interface doesn't make sense.

The reason the battery life is so long on the iPad is that the A4 CPU is extremely power efficient.

I think worrying about webOS not working on a slate PC is exactly the wrong thing to worry about.

The much bigger question is whether moving webOS off of the smartphone will dilute and fragment the operating system too much.

I think webOS is the best designed OS for a phone because it's designed to work with both touch and a fully qwerty keyboard. Looking up contacts, searching for apps, sending a message -- webOS is optimized to do that in the shortest number of "clicks." Better than iPhone OS, be

WebOS has such a small installed base, and so few apps, fragmentation is not at all their chief concern. HP needs to outsell all previous WebOS devices by far in the first few months just to keep making HP Slate. They need to get more apps made for Slate than have ever been made so far for WebOS or the project is a failure.

When Pre first shipped, iPhone 3G was $399. Then just a few days after Pre shipped at $299, Apple introduced iPhone 3GS for $199 and iPhone 3G for $99. That was Apple killing Palm for the second time.

So if you are a Palm user, this is another rebirth for Palm, as part of HP. Things not only will change dramatically, they have to change dramatically.

The killer app on phones is calls. On tablets, it's apps. If they don't expose a full C API, they will ultimately be toast. Developers need to be able to port their big screen Windows, Mac, iPhone, and PlayStation apps to HP Slate. All of those are written in C.

The full Optware distribution, native SDL apps, and a click-the-launcher Terminal application, all looked on with favor by Palm [elinux.org] tend to disagree with your claims, and that's not even mentioning that you can run custom kernels under WebOS if you like.

It's also funny you should mention writing apps in HTML+JS; I'm using GWT to do that right now for a desktop application exactly because it's an easy way to write multi-platform apps, including mobile versions.

Yeah, but without C you can't port iPhone apps to WebOS. You can't port Windows apps, Mac apps, PlayStation apps, Wii apps, and so on. This is a full-size screen. There are many developers with full-size C apps.

Also, on the tiny CPU's in mobile, the devices really benefit from highly-optimized, compiled C code. And if I want to run Web apps, I can do that with HTML5 and client-side storage on iPhone and Android already. We are long past the time when you can pretend that HTML+JS+CSS is a "native" app.

WebOS is quite happy to run C apps; it's just that the graphical toolkit is different from the one on the iPhone. There's not a whit of difference between this distinction and writing for MVC versus, say, Motif.

You can't port graphical Windows apps, Mac apps, or the like to the iPhone or WebOS--but non-graphical programs (even including a full Apache install) run quite happily on the latter.

The ability to run HTML5 apps on WebOS, the iPhone, and Android is exactly what I'm saying is a feature--you get cros

Probably, but if any product is going to be able to compete with the iPad, it will have to be something where the same company controls both the hardware and the software. Consumers don't care about freedom in the FSF sense, they care about what works best for them. So HP is starting out on the right track. I don't think they will succeed, but at least they are starting (well, restarting) with the correctly by doing it themselves (through acquisition, though).

For a WebOS tablet to reasonably take on the iPad, it will have to be top-notch hardware (no, that does not mean an SD card slot, or USB), and it will have to have top-notch software. I just don't see how HP will be able to get close enough to the iPad in either of those. If they market this as an iPad competitor and go after the average consumer, they will fail. If instead, they go after some other niche, they may certainly be able to gain some traction.

I would absolutely love it if HP were to make this into a sort of engineering device, but sadly that HP is dead. They are a consumer company now, and there isn't a consumer company on the planet that can out-design and out-engineer Apple.

That's no Google's style. They take the Linux model for their products, where they put out a customizable, extendable product. That's why Android has such disproportionate mind-share here on Slashdot, because it resonates with the geek mindset.